Ep #30: 3 Steps to Conquer Your Fear of Rejection

Welcome to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha-mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.

What’s up, my brothers. Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. Today, we’re going to talk about rejection. We’re going to talk about that big R-word that everyone fears at some time in their life because we all fear it as children. And I’m going to get into that later in the podcast.

But this topic is huge. This topic, this fear of rejection really is a big one. I’m really excited to bring it to you. And if you’re a follower, if you’re a subscriber to the podcast, then you know that you’re going to be getting some amazing stuff today. But if you’re not, if you just looked this up, maybe you looked up alpha male, maybe you looked up how to never fear rejection again, how to never feel rejected again and you found this is the first podcast you’re listening to, stay until the end because by the end of this episode, you are going to know how to never fear rejection again.

This is going to be a life-changing episode. All of my episodes are life-changing. All of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast episodes are life-changing, but this one is going to really blow your mind, guys.

So, let me get into it here. And I’m actually going to start with telling you that fear of rejection, it’s not always called a fear of rejection. Sometimes it’s called the fear of failure. Sometimes it’s called social anxiety. In dating circles it’s approach anxiety. But these are all the same thing. And here’s why they’re all the same thing; fear of failure and fear of rejection, they’re both fears.

They both create fear, but the idea of failure versus the idea of rejection is like the difference between a rectangle and a square. And if you go back, way back to high school geometry, it’s deep in your brain, it’s way back there, but failure is like a rectangle and rejection is like a square. And really, what that means is that the fear of failure, there’s lots of different ways to fail.

There’s lots of different ways you could classify failure. Fear of rejection is a very specific, it’s a special failure. So like a square is a special rectangle, like a circle is a special oval. Rejection is a special failure. It’s failing in a specific way.

So a fear of failure and a fear of rejection is very similar, but approach anxiety, social anxiety, these things that plague so many people, they are also the same thing. And here’s why; anxiety is not an emotion, guys. Anxiety is an emotional derivative.

Now, what I mean by that is anxiety comes up not from an emotion. Remember, an emotion is a chemical. It’s a neurotransmitter, a neuropeptide, it comes from the brain, gets into your cells of your body, makes them vibrate, that causes you to have a feeling. Fear is a feeling. Anxiety is a feeling, but it’s not caused by a chemical, it’s caused by the resistance to feeling that vibration.

So you can feel fear or you can resist feeling fear and feel anxiety instead. You can feel bored or you can resist feeling bored and feel anxiety instead. You can feel angry or frustrated or agitated, or you can resist feeling these emotions and feel anxiety instead. So anxiety is this derivative.

It’s an emotional derivative. It’s the resistance to feeling fear or feeling an emotion. So when we talk about approach anxiety, when we talk about social anxiety, really what we’re talking about is an anxiety in a social setting or anxiety in approaching a woman and that anxiety is in resistance to something. Usually it’s in resistance to feeling a fear of rejection.

And the reason why is because both in those social settings and in that approach scenario, that is what we human beings fear. We fear not being accepted by either the social gathering, the social anxiety, or not being accepted by this woman in approach anxiety.

So it’s all the same. And I want you guys to know that right off the bat because really when I talk about the fear of rejection, I’m talking about all these things; approach anxiety, social anxiety, fear of failure. So when I say, you will, by the end of this episode, never fear rejection again, I’m also saying that you will not feel approach anxiety because you’ll know that it is no big deal.

Now, that’s kind of another episode, talking about emotions and what they are, being no big deal, and you can go back to look at some of those episodes. The episode on emotion, we talked about exactly what emotions are and you can look at that. But anxiety is just resistance. So why do we fear rejection?

We all fear it. We may not all fear it now, but we all feared it as children and it’s necessary for our childhood development. Creating and having a healthy fear of rejection is something that every kid goes through in order to survive. You really have to develop a fear of rejection, you have to learn how to be a part of the group or be a part of a group very early on.

And that very first group is your family, right? It’s your mom and dad, maybe brothers and sisters. But as an infant, you cannot survive on your own. You cannot survive on your own as a little baby, as an infant.

Now, when you get into the age of four, five, six, seven, maybe you can survive on your own. There are people in other countries, there are people in this country – I say people, there are children in other countries, there are children in this country that are surviving on their own. It’s not ideal. It’s not the best situation, but they are able to survive on their own.

And then, obviously, in teens, as you get into a teen, it becomes easier to survive on your own, but again, it’s not ideal. We don’t want to be out on our own. We really need to develop a full understanding of the world. We need to fully develop our brain, the prefrontal cortex of our brain, before we no longer have this need to be sort of approved by other people.

We need approval from other people when we’re children because we need them to protect us, to keep us safe. That’s how we learn to feel safe, by being accepted by the group. So fear of rejection is something that we learn very early on, like in infancy, bro. As babies, almost, we learn to fear being rejected by our parents.

Now, the good news is that once the prefrontal cortex has developed and we have an understanding of the way that the world works, when we understand the universal truth, we don’t need to fear rejection anymore. We get to choose what we think instead of letting other people’s actions choose how we think, instead of having other people determine whether we’re safe or not.

Now, that’s a pretty big shift and a lot of people still live in that childhood beta condition. However, they don’t have to. And that’s hopefully why you’re listening to this podcast, to learn how to make that shift from beta condition to the alpha state, or manifesting as a beta male into what you are and getting the life you deserve, living the life you’re meant to live as an alpha male.

So, that’s why we fear rejection. We fear rejection because it’s a part of our childhood. It’s a part of developing the beta condition. But now I want to talk to you about exactly what rejection is. And this might blow your mind because you might think that rejection is an action. You might have this idea that rejection is something that someone does to you, that you can be rejected.

Do you understand? So rejection being this action that other people take towards you by not approving of you or letting you be a part of their group or just rejecting you and saying I don’t want to be around you, I don’t want to be your friend, whatever, you may think that’s an action. The truth is, my friend, it is not an action. It’s a thought.

Rejection is just a thought. And why is it just a thought? Well, let’s get into this. Let me recap. The universal truth is that circumstances are neutral. And circumstances do include other people’s behavior, other people’s actions, other people’s words. It includes everything that’s happening now in the external world.

It also includes the past. It includes all events that occur outside of you, everything that’s happening in this world is a circumstance. And those circumstances are neutral. They’re just happening. They’re just data that you collect through your sensory organs that is fed to the brain where you have a thought about it.

Once you have a thought about it, once you make these circumstances mean something, then they become subjective. Then they become good, bad, right, wrong, positive, negative, comfortable, uncomfortable, et cetera. So when we look at the model, which is the way that the universal truth is examined and we see the universal truth in action, in events, in moments, you’ll see that circumstance happens, there’s something that occurs, and then we have a thought about it.

And that thought creates an emotion. That emotion is released into the body and becomes a feeling. That feeling drives the action. And then the action becomes the result, which again, reinforces that original thought. That’s the universal truth. It’s also the model, those five components.

And other people’s actions, again, whether you think that a rejection happens to you, you think it’s something that someone else does, but what other people do are circumstances. They’re neutral. So rejection cannot be a circumstance.

Now, you may say, well it could be a circumstance and I get to decide what I want to think about it. That’s true, but rejection itself is subjective. Rejection itself is not objective. So by definition, it is a thought because a circumstance is indisputable. It’s a fact. It’s something that everybody would agree to. And rejection looks different for different people.

You ask somebody what rejection is and they’re going to tell you different things. Like, you ask 10 different people what they think rejection is, you’re going to get 10 different answers more than likely because it’s not one thing. It’s not a single act. It’s not like gravity, where we can say, yes gravity is the same for all people in all places.

Rejection is different. It’s a thought. We can think we’re being rejected or we can think that we’re not being rejected with that same person behaving in the same way. So rejection being a thought, this is very good for us because again we go back to the definition of being an alpha male.

An alpha male is the man who has learned to master his cognition and own his emotions. Master your mind. Manage and master your thoughts. So if you are living in your alpha state, you’re living as an alpha male, then you are mastering your thoughts and you never have to – have to is a beta term because have to implies a lack of control – but you don’t have to decide to allow the thought, I have been rejected or I’m being rejected, into your mind.

Like, she’s rejecting me, they’re rejecting me, I’m being rejected, that never ever, ever, ever has to go into your brain because you are the master of your cognition. You are creating. You’re choosing your thinking.

So that’s kind of how the model works. That’s the universal truth. That’s why we fear rejection and that’s what rejection is. But let me hit you with this, guys, and this is the truth; when you allow other people’s behavior, when you allow circumstances to choose your thoughts, when you allow what somebody else does to kind of trigger a thought in you, an unconscious thought, that is your beta condition. Then you are in that beta condition.

And whether you’re conscious or unconscious of that triggered thought, you’re not in control because the other person’s in control. The other person’s actions are what is creating your thoughts. In fact, you may not even be completely aware of the difference between what you think about what’s happening and what’s happening, about what is being said or done by someone else and what you think is being said or done by someone else.

They may be one to you, and when they’re one, that’s when you’re in danger of being in the beta condition, because then you’re allowing whatever’s happening in front of you to dictate your thinking. And when your thinking is dictated, guess what, your emotions are dictated as well. Now other people are not just controlling your mind, but they’re controlling your emotions and your emotions are going to drive your actions.

So really, the fear of rejection is the fear of allowing someone else’s actions or words to make you feel a certain way. That fear is irrational. In fact, it’s erroneous because it’s just not true. It happens, it’s a part of our beta condition, but it’s not the way it has to be. It’s the illusion that we are in when we’re living in that beta mindset.

Now, again, as kids, we don’t understand this because our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain where the alpha state lives, the part of our brain where we can think about our thoughts and deliberately choose our thoughts, it’s not fully developed. So the fear of rejection is a learned fear. We learn this fear very early on and we can choose not to have it anymore.

Let’s run a quick scenario. I’m going to run a very quick scenario because I want to give you some tips at the end of this so you never have to fear rejection again, never choose to fear rejection again; a real quick scenario.

Let’s say you’re a single guy, you see a beautiful woman and you want to approach her. Right away, you get that approach anxiety, right, you fear the rejection. So you’re thinking that she is going to reject you, so maybe you don’t approach her at all. That would be the end of the podcast, right, that would be the end of the episode.

Let’s say you do approach her. Let’s run this model. So you approach her. You introduce yourself. You get talking. Now, the beta man is going to allow her actions and behaviors to determine what he is thinking, because again, that’s the beta condition, guys. And I want to make sure you understand that the beta condition is the illusion that other people’s actions and behaviors have some sort of subjective impact on you, like they’re good, they’re bad, like they’re the ones that are in control.

So, when she says something that you are reacting to, you’re reacting to her words, you’re reacting to her behavior, then you’re in that beta condition. You’re acting like a beta male. And that’s why you fear rejection, because you are afraid that she, this person, is going to say or do something that is going to determine your thoughts and emotions and behavior.

That is the illusion. Now, when I say illusion, understand that this happens. It happens all the time and it could be why you’re listening to this podcast right now. It could be why you were going to go to my website and sign up for a free 45-minute consultation call, because you don’t have to live that- way. You don’t have to live in a way where other people, what they say and what they do, determine what you think and what you feel, because again, that’s the beta move. That’s the beta condition. That’s the beta male.

As an alpha, what you want to do, what you have the ability to do as the master of your cognition is to hold that mental frame. You choose what you want to think. And it doesn’t matter what anybody else does. If we go back to this scenario, you’re talking to this woman, it doesn’t matter what she says. It doesn’t matter what she does. You’re holding the mental frame that you choose to hold in order to feel the emotion that’s going to drive the actions and results that you want.

So maybe you want to feel confident. Maybe you want to feel fun. Maybe you want to feel exciting. Maybe you want to feel happy. Maybe you want to feel sexy. Whatever it is that you want to feel to get the actions and the results that you’re looking for, you just have to hold the mental frame, the thoughts, that will create those emotions, and not allow what’s happening outside of you, not allow the circumstance, which is her, right, the circumstance in front of you to determine, to sway you, to break you out of that mental frame.

That’s the difference. That’s the difference between the alpha state manifesting as an alpha male and the beta condition manifesting as a beta male. You get to choose. If she chooses what you think based on her actions, if she gets to decide your cognition based on what she says and does, then you’re in that beta condition. Stay in that mental frame; that strong indomitable immovable unbreakable hold of mastering your cognition. It’s your thinking.

So here are the three steps to never fearing rejection again. Number one, you’ve got to know what rejection is. You’ve got to know that it’s not an action. You’ve got to know that it’s not something that someone is doing to you. It is not something – let me put it this way; it’s not something that’s out of your control. Rejection is something that is totally in your control because it is a thought, because it is what you’re thinking about your circumstance, what you’re thinking about what’s happening in front of you.

And you are always in control of your thinking, that’s the beauty. That’s the power of the alpha state. That’s the power of being an alpha male is cognitive mastery. So by being in charge, by being the master of your thinking, you get to always determine whether what is happening is rejection or not rejection.

That’s number one. You’ve got to know that rejection is not something that happens to you. You never get rejected. There’s no such thing as being rejected unless you choose to think about it that way, unless you choose to have that thought, I’m being rejected. And then it is true because you’re thinking it. But you don’t have to.

So rejection is not people’s actions. Rejection is the way you think about people’s actions. That’s number one, know what rejection is. Number two, set your mental frame ahead of time. So whether we’re talking about approach anxiety, whether we’re talking about talking to a beautiful woman.

Let’s say you know you’re going out, going to a bar, you want to go talk to a girl. You see a girl, let’s say it’s even just a cold approach in the middle of the day and you know you’re going to see a woman that you want to talk to. Prepare yourself ahead of time. What is your mental frame? What are the thoughts you have about yourself?

This goes back to confidence. What are the thoughts you have about yourself? What are the thoughts you have about other people? What are the thoughts you have about women in general? What are the thoughts you have about beautiful women? Set your mental frame, choose your cognition ahead of time.

And I call this the intentional model. When I work with my students, when I work with my clients, there’s the unintentional model which is the beta condition, which is kind of that unconscious model that’s running where we get unwanted results, and then there’s the intentional model, where the alpha state is elevated and we start to choose our thoughts in order to get the results we want.

So set your intentional model. Take a look at your model and determine ahead of time what thoughts you want to think to feel confident, what thoughts do you want to think to feel funny? What thoughts do you want to think to feel excited? What thoughts do you want to think to feel sexy? To feel debonair? Whatever it is that you want to feel, whatever emotion that you want to have to get the result through action – emotion’s going to drive action, action’s going to get your result.

You need to know and practice thinking those thoughts ahead of time That’s number two; set your mental frame. And number three, hold your mental frame. So you’ve set it. Number one, you know what rejection is. You know it’s an illusion. It’s a thought. It’s not an action. So it never has to be a part of your life again, right? You never have to let that enter your mental space again.

Number two, you’ve determined what you want to think. You’ve determined, you have your mind set, you’re running these thoughts. But number three, you’ve got to hold that mental frame. There’s got to be that time when you test it. So it’s not just about sitting at your desk, sitting in your kitchen or in your room and writing your intentional models and saying yes I’m going to think this, yes I’m going to think this.

No, you’ve got to go out. You’ve got to take that action, go out, and hold that mental frame so that you practice holding that mental frame in response to other people’s neutral actions. Now again, you can do this one on one with a woman if you want to go to a bar, go to a club, go to anywhere really. You could do this right now.

You could take this podcast. If you’re driving, probably not. You could pull over of course. But you could just go anywhere and approach anyone. It doesn’t have to be set up at a certain time. Anybody that you think, I’m fearing rejection, boom, that’s your time. Make that move. Take the action and hold your mental frame.

Social anxiety is the same. You know, if you know you have a holiday party coming up, if you know you have a work party coming up, if you know you have a public speaking or you’re going to be giving a presentation to your coworkers, your peers, and you have anxiety, then you know that you can practice then as well. You can hold that mental frame because other people’s actions are neutral. They are completely neutral.

There’s nobody that’s ever going to reject you unless you let them with your cognition. That is how you never fear rejection again, my friend. Now, I want to finish with this; I basically want to tell you that this three-step, know what rejection is, set your mental frame, and hold your mental frame, this doesn’t happen overnight.

This happens with time and it happens with some coaching. So what happens is, first you have to recognize what your model is, you have to recognize your unintentional model. Then we’ve got to look at your intentional model and say, okay how are we going to get the results you want? How are we going to change that R-line? Because right now, in the unintentional model, you have unwanted results, and we can change that R-line to what you want it to be.

But then a tricky thing happens. Then you’re looking at your intentional model and you’re saying, well I still feel fear though. What’s the deal, coach? I’m still feeling fear. Yes, you are going to still feel fear because you are still running your unintentional model. It’s still in your brain. That’s why number three, holding your mental frame and acting anyway, is so key.

Still got to go, still got to approach, still got to get into those social situations because you have to let that anxiety, you have to let that fear be there while you practice your intentional model, while you practice your intentional thoughts. if you just let the fear and the anxiety stop you, paralyze you, making you sit there and do nothing, then your unintentional model will always be working. That beta condition will always be running.

Let the fear be there. Let the anxiety be there. Take action anyway. That is how you start to create your wanted results from your intentional model. So, that’s what I’ve got for you today, my friend. Go to the website, take a look, I have for you a free 45-minute session that you can sign up for right now. You can go to my website and sign up right now.

We can talk about approach anxiety, social anxiety, fear of failure, fear of rejection, anything you want. Whatever you’re dealing with, whatever you’re struggling with right now, thealphamalecoach.com, click on the link, it’s going to send you to my booking app, it’s going to send you to my appointment calendar and I’m going to talk to you and we’re going to coach you through this.

I’m going to show you exactly how the model works. Instead of listening to it on a podcast, I’m going to show it with your specific question. Alright, my friend, until I see you or until you hear me next week, as always, elevate your alpha.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoy what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash Your Alpha – your guide to shifting to the alpha mindset – at thealphamalecoach.com/unleash.